It is well known that the deuterium content of each liter of common water, if fused to helium, can release as much energy as the combustion of 300 liters of gasoline. In recognition of this fact, huge government-funded research programs have been conducted since 1956 in most industrialized nations, without tangible success. But even if nuclear fusion of technically useable magnitude had been achieved, the complex laboratory machines used would have deteriorated rapidly under the heavy neutron flux, and the reaction heat could not have been recuperated for conversion into electrical power via thermodynamic plants.
In my German Pat. No. 1 022 711 of 1956 I have already proposed to protect the load-carrying walls of the nuclear reaction vessel from neutron damage and from mechanical damage by the shock waves, by a thick layer of a liquid metal which could also be used to absorb the heat and conduct it to the associated turbogenerator. In my above-mentioned patent application I have proposed that not a liquid metal layer but a layer of the poorly conducting molten salt .sup.6 LiD.sub.1-x T.sub.x (0&lt;.times.&lt;1) be used for wall protection, with important additional advantages. This liquid which now forms the self-renewable walls of the nuclear explosion chamber, does not only absorb the escaping thermonuclear neutrons, but is can also convert them, with energy gain, into tritium T by means of fission of .sup.6 Li. The T is then chemically bound, for participation in the next power stroke. The D-T fusion proceeds much easier than the D-D fusion, and the T-T fusion may go even easier than D-T. The high-temperature stability of molten LiD around 1000.degree. C. is favorable for thermodynamic power plant efficiency. LiD cannot become dangerously radioactive, and its high resistivity (compared to metals) makes it possible to form narrow electrical discharge channels in it.
In my above-cited foregoing patent applications, the nuclear fusion conditions were assumed to be achievable by means of the mechanical and magnetic compression that is created by current flow along the walls of a deuterium-tritium-filled cavity that had been generated in the liquid-filled interelectrode space before each discharge. In the present disclosure, the fusion conditions are produced more simply, namely by just discharging the capacitor through the liquid using a preformed conductivity path. The apparatus used is generally similar to the previous one. A new addition is that the electrodes can contain beryllium, for neutron multiplication. Also, it is recognized now that the efficiency of the machine is greater than originally assumed, because of the occurrence of short nuclear chain reactions in the Li-D-T plasma channel, with the concomitant additional heat.
Supporting evidence for the scheme of the invention has been found in the publications of F. C. Young et al, IEEE Trans. Nuclear Science NS-20, Page 439, February 1973, and by D. Y. Cheng, Nuclear Fusion 13, Page 129, January 1973. These authors report the generation of thermonuclear neutrons in D-containing wire explosions. The pulsed operation proposed by me in 1956 has recently been advocated by Edward Teller, IEEE Spectrum, January 1973, p. 60.